How to Increase Your Chances of Luck in Sales

The sales reps who believe in luck are the ones who get the most luck

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Good Morning and Happy National Vanilla Ice Cream Day. It’s estimated that over $11.4 billion worth of ice cream is sold in the US every year, which breaks down to roughly 20 pounds of ice cream eaten by each American. With those types of numbers, it might also be one of the easiest products to sell… I mean, who doesn’t love ice cream? 🍦 

In today’s Follow Up:

  • The power of luck in sales 🍀 

  • A sales tip of the day 🧠

  • 10 mistakes from new sales VP’s 🚩 

  • Sales jobs, Linkedin & a meme 😂

Increasing Your Chances of Luck in Sales

Luck is a salesperson’s best and worst friend.

We’ve all witnessed that rep who wound up with the best territory on the team or had a massive deal fall on their lap from no work of their own.

But just as much as luck plays a part in helping us in our careers, unlucky breaks are just as common.

Crowdstrike vs NVIDIA

We saw a clear example of this last week when CrowdStrike pushed a software update that took down the computer systems of some of the largest companies in the world.

Now, imagine being a CrowdStrike sales rep this week. Trying to sell that same faulty system to new customers… yikes.

On the flip side, a sales rep who joined NVIDIA in the 2010s is likely to be a millionaire right now, and selling one of the most in-demand products on the market.

Sales reps at both companies chose to sell for a fast growing tech company that paid well. But Crowdstrike had the biggest computer outage in recent history, and NVIDIA benefitted from an AI boom that took their market cap from $150 billion to over $3 trillion in the last 5 years. (That’s the same as the UK’s GDP…)

It’s hard to ignore the fact that luck plays a major factor in your sales career. But blaming success on pure luck is for the lazy.

According to research done by Professor Joël Le Bon, the best way for salespeople to manage luck is to believe in it.  

Joël conducted a study of 70 sales students who sold >$132K in golf tournament sponsorships and found that the sales reps attributed more than two-thirds of that revenue to luck.

And there’s a reason for that.

The sales reps who believed in luck the most were also the reps who worked the hardest and completed the most sales activity.

The best sales reps have the same strategy as a gambling addict… The more you play, the better chance you have at winning.

Except gamblers tend to lose all their money, and the best sales reps make a lot more.

How To Find More Luck

On top of believing in luck, Joël found the best things reps can do to increase their luck include:

Market Intelligence: Reps who study their customer, competitors, and the market they sell into become experts in their field and increase their chances of luck.

Listening: The golden rule of sales. Listen more than you talk to understand customer pain points and objections.

High Activity: In most cases, reps with the highest activity increase their surface area of getting lucky. Instead of setting quota goals, start by setting activity goals.

Failure Goals: The most successful people in business have failed more than most. By setting goals like “get rejected 10 times today", reps can feel better about their failures and acknowledge them as part of the process.

Comfort Zones: Reps who get out of their comfort zones put themselves in situations to ‘get lucky’.

Do you believe that luck has played a major part in your career?

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Sales Tip of The Day 💡

When you get ahold of the wrong contact at a target company, ask them to forward your email to the correct contact.

People are wired to want to help others and internal emails are more likely to get read and responded to than external cold emails.

After all, the worst they can say is no. 🤷‍♂️ 

Sales Around The Web 🗞️

📈 Three ways to add data privacy into your sales strategy, and why they might actually increase your pipeline.

🗣️ The Founder and President of Vector Firm says the best way to overcome a customer’s objection is to bring up the objection first.

🤬 Sales reps discuss the worst salespeople they’ve ever come across in their careers.

Cool Sales Jobs 💼

Checking In On LinkedIn

Now this a LinkedIn announcement we can get behind… 🤣 

Sales Meme of the Day

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